Augusta Prep Upper School student Drew Cronin was recently named a semifinalist for the National Merit Scholarship Program.

Cronin is among 16,000 students nationwide to achieve the semifinalist status among 1.6 million juniors who entered an initial screening of the program by taking the 2016 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Cronin now has the opportunity to continue in the competition for 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million that will be offered next spring, according to a news release from the program.

"A Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test,” the program’s release states. “From the approximately 16,000 Semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the Finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation.”

Merit Scholarship winners of 2018 will be announced starting in the spring of 2018. Augusta Prep wishes to congratulate Cronin and all of this year’s commended scholars on quite an accomplishment!